Looper
Hunted by your future, haunted by your past.
Country
Production
Genre
Budget
$30 000 000
Revenue
$176 506 819
Director
Actors
Scenario
Producer
James D. Stern, Ram Bergman, Julie Goldstein, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Peter Schlessel, Douglas Hansen, Dan Mintz
Operator
Composer
Artist
Ed Verreaux
Audition
Mary Vernieu, Lindsay Graham Ahanonu
Editing
Bob Ducsay
All team (100)
All team (100)
Short description
In a near-future Kansas, time travel does not yet exist, but it will in about thirty years, and organized crime has found a use for it. Targets are sent back to the present, where hired guns called loopers kill them and dispose of the bodies, erasing the victims from history. Joe works as one of these assassins, saving his earnings toward a life elsewhere. The arrangement breaks down when he is sent his own older self as a target, and the two versions of the same man come into conflict.
Rian Johnson wrote and directed the film, his third feature after Brick and The Brothers Bloom. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Joe, with Bruce Willis as his older counterpart, alongside Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Noah Segan and Piper Perabo. The film is based on Johnson's own screenplay, produced by Ram Bergman among others.
Made for about 30 million dollars, Looper earned roughly 47 million worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.4 from around 627,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.9 from more than 11,000. The critics' rating of 8.2 from 274 reviews is noticeably higher than either audience score, suggesting reviewers responded to the film more warmly than general viewers did.
What's left behind the scenes
- When Old Joe returns to the cane field, he knocks out Young Joe, throws the musket, and drives away with it. Later in the film, the musket reappears with Old Joe when he shoots the bad guy in the car near Young Joe's apartment.
- The record player shown in several scenes is a Gyro SE, made by British company Michell Engineering. It has been in continuous production since 1983.
- Originally, in the script, Joe was supposed to move to Paris as he got older, which is why he tries to learn French. However, Ryan Johnson realized they simply didn't have the money to film in Paris. The plot was changed, and Joe was "sent" to Shanghai because the film's Chinese distributor offered to pay for the filming there. Johnson accepted their offer because his best alternative to the Paris scenes was filming them in New Orleans, which he didn't want to do, and he also felt that Shanghai better reflected the futuristic setting of the film.
- Willis was the first actor offered the role of Old Joe, and he agreed immediately.
- Bruce Willis fires two modern-looking pistols in one scene. These are "FN P90" models, designed and manufactured by "FN Herstal" in Belgium.
- When Paul Dano's character (Seth) is waiting in Joe's apartment while they want to kill him, he has a runny nose, then doesn't.
- In the future, the Rainmaker's followers wear black coats and wide-brimmed hats, because he "makes it rain blood" when he destroys enemies.
- The scene where young Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls from a fire escape was filmed on the actor's 30th birthday. Gordon-Levitt was left hanging on wires while the film crew sang “Happy Birthday” and wheeled out a birthday cake.
- When Sid and Sarah are driving down the road towards Old Joe, the car flips over and falls onto the road, clearly revealing a safety roll cage supporting the car's roof.
- According to director Rian Johnson, Noah Segan attended several special classes to learn how to spin his revolver around his finger. Johnson told "Entertainment Weekly" that he shot many takes of Segan spinning the gun, but ultimately used one where he accidentally fumbled and almost dropped it. Johnson found it amusing.
- Sid ultimately takes the nickname "The Rainmaker" (referred to as "Shaman" in the Russian version). In the film, his mother on the farm uses a futuristic sprinkler that essentially "creates" rain.
- To create the image of Young Joe, it was decided to base it on Bruce Willis's most recent work, as the task was not to "imitate a young Willis, but to create a character who, as he grew older, could resemble the hero played by Willis as he is now." Therefore, Gordon-Levitt was more focused on the actor’s later roles, particularly in "Sin City."
- The red car Joe drives is a Mazda MX-5 Mk 1. The car was produced from 1990 to 1998, perfectly matching Joe's late 20th-century retro style.
- When Sarah approaches Joe and examines his face at the end of the film, despite him being supposed to be dead, a pulsating vein is clearly visible on his temple.
- The idea for the film came to Rian Johnson immediately after finishing filming "Brick," and since he wanted to work with Gordon-Levitt again, he wrote the role specifically for him, even giving the main character the actor's name.
- Young Joe is right-handed, while Old Joe is left-handed.
- At the request of the Chinese distributor, several scenes filmed in Shanghai and cut for the international audience were included in the Chinese version of the film.
- When Sarah is smoking in bed, the length of the cigarette changes from shot to shot.
- Sarah shot Young Joe in the right shoulder (Old Joe also noticed a scar on his right shoulder). However, when she later bandages his wound, it is visible that only his left shoulder is injured.
- The incredibly large revolvers were not created specifically for the film; they are actually produced firearms. These are “Magnum Research BFR” revolvers (large-bore revolvers) with “.45-70 Government” cartridges, which were adopted for use by the American military in 1873. Such revolvers weigh approximately 4.5 pounds (about 2 kg).
- When Joe talks to Sid at night in the kitchen, Sid has a gap between his front teeth. In the next scene, where Sid is talking to his mother, he still has a loose baby tooth in the place where the gap previously was.
- To make Gordon-Levitt look more like Willis, the actor had to spend three hours each morning in the makeup chair. Makeup artist Kazuhiro Tsuji, known for his work on films such as "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and "Men in Black," worked on his makeup.
- The diner where and around which scenes were filmed was built in the small town of Thibodaux, Louisiana (about an hour's drive north of New Orleans). Locals, seeing the diner being built, would come and ask the film crew when the establishment would open. Director Rian Johnson was later told that the diner survived even after Hurricane Isaac passed through the area in September 2012.
- When Joe and Sid are talking, looking out of the manhole cover at the end of the tunnel from the house, the branch holding the manhole cover changes its position. It rotates approximately 90 degrees, and this happens 4 or 5 times during the conversation.
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Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
